Farmers feel betrayed as China dangles millions of tons of soybean purchases over the U.S. to get an edge in the

escalating trade war

Soybean farmers, caught in the middle of a trade war between the world’s two biggest superpowers, are starting to feel the consequences as China uses its crop purchasing power as political leverage.

As China’s economy has improved, the country has sought out more growth-boosting, high-protein soybean to feed its growing number of livestock such as pork and poultry. As the world’s biggest soybean buyer, China last year bought $12.6 billion worth of soybean from the U.S.—accounting for more than half of America’s total exports of the crop, which is its biggest agricultural export.

Yet, this year the Trump Administration’s trade war with China has changed up its soybean calculus.

The world’s second biggest economy usually commits to buying U.S. soybean as early as September at the start of the fall harvest. Thanks in part to tensions with the U.S. and increased tariffs, though, China did not commit, from May until the end of October, to any U.S. soybean purchases, partly relying instead on South American imports, especially from Brazil.

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